THE UNIVERSITY TEACHERS FOR HUMAN RIGHTS, JAFFNA (UTHR(Jaffna))
Sri Lanka

Information Bulletin No. 15

Date of Release : 4th November 1997

The Vanni: Behind the war of words

Vanni has featured prominently in the news since the northward bound military
thrust in June where troop
casualties have so far numbered above 700 dead, with the corresponding figure
among the LTTE being of a
similar order. With no first hand access, much of the reporting has had to do
with military claims and counter-
claims by the LTTE. Where the people are concerned, there has been a general
acceptance that life is very
difficult, medical relief is poor amidst aggravated illness, and
undernourishment is the norm. Here again much
of the reporting has dealt with claims and counter-claims. (e.g.: Is the
population in the (uncleared) Vanni
550,000 as maintained by the government or is it 750,000 as appearing in the
records of government officialdom
in the area under the LTTE?)

Particular events from time to time have given added urgency to the
predicament of the civilian population.
About 130 India bound refugees were drowned last February when their
overloaded boat struck a sand bar less
than a mile off Nachchikkudah. On 28th May, 19 civilians including 4
children below 5 years drowned on their
way to Jaffna when their boat on tow cracked. Concern was heightened recently
over two incidents that pointed
to culpability on the part of the government:

On 15th August bombs dropped by the SL air force killed 10 persons including
a 4 year old child who
were refugees living adjacent to the Roman Catholic church in Vavunikkulam,
and injuring a further 14.

The bodies of Rev. Arulpalan of the Jaffna Diocese of the Church of South
India and two labourers who
were missing since 25th August were found at Puthumurippu on 9th September,
not far from the army
bund. Although small groups of the army and the LTTE moved in this area, a
number of circumstances
pointed to the army as the killers. (See reports below.)

Although the information on the latter was initially sketchy by the very
nature of communication difficulties
involving 40 miles of jungle and battle lines in the first instance, it was
the kind of tragedy to draw attention to a
much larger problem, although not always in a manner best calculated to ease
the lot of the people. A statement
by the Australian Human Rights Foundation dated 23rd September referring to
the two events above quoted its
CEO as saying, "It is time for the war of genocide by the racist Government
of Sri Lanka to end. Also the brutal
way that those who oppose this war are silenced should cease".

Ten days later the Sri Lankan foreign minister, speaking at the UN,
highlighted the LTTE's use of children as
suicide warriors, as being most inimical to the Tamil community they claim to
be liberating. Vanni is a place
where many things are happening and the population behind the battle lines is
cut off and completely controlled
by the LTTE. It becomes too easy to put together a given set of events or

parts thereof, and paint a picture that shows any one set of combatants in a
favourable light and the other in the
exact opposite.

The only promising way to get at the truth behind events in the Vanni is to
first understand the nature and
character of the political forces at work and the institutions through which
they are articulated. A compilation of
events is interesting, not for approaching exhaustiveness, but only in so far
as they help to sharpen or to revise
our initial assessment of the tendencies at work.

We now move on to some reports of events in the Vanni. The first suggests
that no single event has a simple
explanation.

Reports

16th August 1997: The shelling of Kattankulam: On this day the army from the
Uyilankilam camp, 8th mile
post on the Mannar-Vavuniya road, shelled Kattankuulam. Two civilians,
including a school boy were killed.
Sixteen civilians were injured, one of whom, the local co-op manager, had a
leg amputated by the MSF at
Madhu. The shells were ostensibly aimed at the LTTE office situated near the
village school. Behind this event,
which cannot be described other than as an atrocity, lies a long story.

The Sri Lankan army gained control of the Mannar-Vavuniya Road during
February this year in a move that
was largely unresisted. It erected defence bunds along the road. Civilians
were not permitted within about half a
mile of the road except through the check point at Uyilankulam. With the
commencement of the second
operation in June to gain control of the north-bound Vavuniya-Jaffna road,
entry into Vavuniya along this route
was closed. Thus for the population in the Vanni heartland north of the
Mannar-Vavuniya road, Uyilankulam
became the only land exit out of the Vanni. The other means of leaving Vanni
is by boat either to India or Jaffna
from Nachchikudah on the north-east coast. This has proved both costly and
hazardous . Another possibility
used by the enterprising or desperate is to go from Vidithal Theevu to Mannar
Island. The water is shallow and
admits wading except for a narrow deep channel.

Once the army opened the Uyilankulam check-point in March, the LTTE lost
control of the movement of
civilians out of the Vanni, who included deserters from the LTTE. The LTTE's
first move to control this flow
was taken on 1st May this year. Its cadre with concealed weapons went along
with the civilians, fired at the army
post killing two soldiers and ran back. (See Ch. 9 of Special Report No. 8.)
The army was careful not to harm
the civilians at the check point. But they shelled areas to the north killing
one civilian and two cows.

Once bitten, the army made conditions at the check point more restrictive.
This made the civilians coming there
more desperate and undisciplined, through the fear that the tail enders would
not be allowed in. In the meantime
the LTTE too opened a check point in Kattankulam in an attempt to control and
monitor the movement, and to
levy taxes on items being brought in from Mannar for purposes of trade.

When the army gained control of the road, although civilian movement was
formally disallowed in areas close
to the bund, it tacitly allowed villagers who had their paddy fields,
dwellings and economic life close to the
bund to carry on as before. Parappankandal was one such village north of the
10th mile post, 2 miles east of
Uyilankulam. A ruse adopted by civilians to evade LTTE checks was to go to
Parappankandal the previous
evening spend the night in the open outside the village, and follow the bund
westwards in the morning to the
Uyilankulam check point.

The only way the LTTE could counter this was to uproot all civilians living
close to the main road. Instead of
doing it on their own, the LTTE got the army to do it. LTTE cadre used to
stand on the edge of the paddy fields
and spray their automatics at storks looking for food. Such actions were
predictably followed by nervous troops
letting loose with cannon. The people were in no doubt what the game was
about. Parappankandal and
Kottakkulam north of it were in time abandoned by civilians, who besides
their homes, lost also their livelihood.
In a further move the LTTE shifted its pass office from Kattankulam to
Periyamadhu, 10 miles away, although
the exit check was at the former, considerably increasing the inconvenience.

A second attack similar to the one on 1st May on the army post at Uyilankulam
was launched by the LTTE in
July. The result made it extremely difficult for farmers and fisherfolk in
the LTTE controlled area who
depended on transporting their produce to Mannar town for sale. Uyilankulam
had also in the meantime become
the main exit for civilians who wanted to leave the Vanni and move to Jaffna
where conditions were improving.
This was done by transporting people from Uyilankulam to Mannar town, 8 miles
distant, by bus, housing them
in camps and shipping them to Jaffna. For this to be feasible it had to be
accomplished with speed as water
facilities and infrastructure to house refugees in Mannar were poor. A
further sign of LTTE intentions was that
on 1st July its cadre boarded and set fire to MV Mission, which was chartered
for that purpose and was anchored
off Pesalai. The nine crew members were later released. The deed was
condemned by the UNHCR, further
impairing its badly strained relations with the LTTE.

The course of events led to increasing nervousness on the part of the
soldiers manning the entry point. The
routine was for soldiers to move forward in the morning from Uyilankulam camp
to the entry point, and signal
the civilians waiting at a distance to come forward. The soldiers would then
try to get some order into the
oncoming stampede by shouting at them to come in single file. On occasions
when their shouting and
gesticulating yielded little result, they closed the barrier and hooked it
back to the camp through fear that LTTE
gun men were coming behind civilian cover.

On 16th August LTTE gun men did come behind civilian cover and killed 6
soldiers before escaping. This was
the prelude to the shelling of Kattankulam referred to at the beginning. Once
more the soldiers took care not to
harm the civilians at the check point, who unknowingly had been used as a
cover by the LTTE. The routine then
was further tightened. Civilians wanting to enter had to wait at a distance
and come one at a time when called,
through a new barbed wire corridor. The number entering was restricted to 600
per day, three days a week
(Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday), resulting in many , especially the older
and feeble having to wait it out for
days, often going to Periyamadhu by LTTE bus (Rs 50 one way), stay in
lodgings run by the LTTE, and try the
next time. The army has presently relaxed its regime, and more than 1000 have
been observed entering before
the barrier is closed at 12 noon.

The LTTE's ban and consequent attacks on north bound shipping should also to
be seen in a different light. Its
main impact in Jaffna is to curtail travel. More significant is its impact in
the Vanni. It has effectively applied
the brakes on people quitting the LTTE controlled areas. The ban on shipping
came at a time when the transport
of displaced persons to Jaffna by the government had got into some organised
state. Those leaving now are
people desperate enough to spend possibly months in transit camps or pay
large sums for a risky passage by
unseaworthy vessels. On the face of it, interestingly, there are no
restrictions on the part of the LTTE. The exit
visa simply costs Rs 200 per civilian with an additional Rs 500 for the young
of recruitment age.

By October (1997) the shelling of forward villages north of the bund, now
largely occupied by displaced
persons, had become frequent. People normally move to safer areas during the
night. On the night of 11th
October the LTTE made a failed bid to disrupt army lines. The civilian areas
were subject to intense shelling.
Fortunately most civilians had moved out upon seeing the LTTE.

19th February 1997: The sinking of the India bound refugee ship: The unknown
aspect: The news of the
tragedy was broken to the Colombo press by military sources who listened to
LTTE radio communications. A
trawler with about 160 passengers to India on board ran into a sand bar about
a mile off Nachchikudah, and
broke under the impact of waves on the aft. The alarm was raised from the
shore. LTTE boats which rushed to
the scene rescued 20 persons with the Indian crew. The rest were drowned.
About 85 bodies recovered were
taken to Akkarayan hospital. A report in the Sunday Times of 23rd February
gave more details quoting "The
Voice of the Tigers" which interviewed some of the survivors. They said that
the boat was overloaded and the
crew were drunk. The TULF leader in a letter to the president blamed the
tragedy on the restrictive and
harassing manner in which those coming into Vavuniya from the Vanni were
being treated.

The Tigers put the blame on the allegedly drunken crew. But that the Tigers
were under heavy pressure is
revealed by the fact that the survivors were interviewed on their radio, who
reportedly went as far as to talk
about overloading. Now the loading was done by the Tigers who collected about
Rs 10,000 from each passenger
and paid part to the owners of the boat.

This is confirmed by reports from the Vanni. They regard mainly the
overloading as significant. The 'Father's
boat service' (named after Fr. Thevarajah, the initiator) which plied between
Kalpitiya and Mannar before the
land route was available, employed capacious trawlers from the Pesalai
Fishermen's Co-operative. The navy
restricted the passenger capacity to 75 although more than 100 were often
carried. Hence to any layman who
knew something about sailing, 160 passengers in a fishing trawler from these
parts would have sounded
outrageous.

Indeed testimony from the Vanni confirms that there were problems which were
quickly suppressed. About 75%
of the passengers were displaced persons from the LTTE leader's village of
Valvettithurai. As the loading
proceeded they complained vehemently that the boat was being overloaded. The
LTTE men in charge ignored
the protests and importuned them to get on board. This was known to many
people on the shore in
Nachchikudah. As soon as the news of the disaster became known, a number of
people on the shore protested
angrily, blaming greed on the part of the LTTE as being responsible for the
disaster. Two protesters were taken
away by the LTTE, and are said to be missing .

Another man displaced from Katkovalam in Vadamaratchy to Puthukkudiyiruppu,
lost his wife and daughter in
the disaster, and was freely expressing his anger. He was summoned to a local
LTTE camp. After coming out he
was subdued. The incident also highlights another problem. Among those who
disappeared under LTTE rule are
also a significant number not having any group, political or institutional
affiliation, whose crime was
spontaneous village level opposition. Their number would be among the hardest
to estimate.

28th May 1997: Drowned en route to Jaffna: What follows is based on
testimony given to the Uthayan by the
survivors. Three displaced families comprising 14 persons associated with the
goldsmith's trade, left Mallavi by
by van at 6.00 p.m. on 27/5 reaching Naachchikkudah at 10.00 p.m. They joined
others, all of whom left for
Jaffna at 5.00 a.m. on 28/5 in three boats linked together by tow ropes. The
party named were in the first with
the engine. The goods were carried in the second, and the last had 30
passengers. An hour from departure at
Pallikudah, a gust of wind set off a wave that crashed on the side of the
third boat. The passengers shouted that
water was coming in and the next moment the boat split. The boat driver
jumped in and helped to save some. He
then threw belongings from the second boat into the sea to make room for the
survivors. 19 were drowned
including 4 children below 5 years and three young girls. Three survivors
swam off to Pallikudah saying that
they had lost their kin and had nothing to go back to Jaffna to.

The LTTE stopped the movement of passengers to Jaffna about the end of July.
Later reports from the Vanni
said that boats would resume about 18th September. Another 12 persons
undertaking this journey were reported
drowned on 3rd October, the one survivor Kandiah Selvaratnam having lost his
entire family.

Sunday, July: Mankulam: The army fired 35 shells into Mankulam town which was
then a main population
centre. 7 civilians were killed, including Rathy teacher, and about 24 were
injured. The advancing army was
then between Omanthai and Puliyankulam. Mankulam is 15 miles north of
Puliyankulam. The matter was raised
with the army by an official of an international agency. The army officer
denied their firing the shells that had
come from the south and blamed the LTTE. According to the official from the
international agency, they parted
after agreeing to disagree.
On a subsequent occasion, the army fired several shells into villages on the
Oddusuddan - Mankulam road,
forcing the population to flee west of Mankulam.

15th August: Vavunikkulam: The air force bombed the cluster of houses
bordering the Church of Our Lady of
Velankanni, then under the parish priest Fr.J.J.Mauilis. 10 persons were
killed. The only known LTTE target is
a practice camp * mile away. How the air force made such a mistake, if it was
one, remains to be investigated,
given that the church with such a distinct facade is situated in a huge
compound, and thus clearly visible from
the air.

It is sad that the credibility of the air force is being questioned not on
grounds of accountability to civilians, but
only in view of unaccounted losses in aircraft. An item in the Island of the
30th October titled 'Muthiyankattu
Tiger Base Bombed' gives a feeling of how decisions are taken such as in the
instance above. Airforce
Commander Oliver Ranasinghe was quoted: "On information extracted from a
Tiger terrorist taken into custody
by the airforce, it was revealed that terrorists fleeing from Mullaitivu were
taking refuge in Tiger camps in the
jungles of Muthiyankattu. The airforce therefore successfully targetted
several camps within Muthainkattu
jungles completely destroying them".

The current situation in the Vanni

In an interview given to the Sunday Island (5th October) Gerard Peytrignet,
the outgoing head of the ICRC
delegation stated, "É our estimate is that there are 500,000 to 700,000
persons (in the Vanni), half of them live
in conditions of displacement from their homes. They rely on assistance from
the government or complementary
assistance from humanitarian organisations. The government has continued to
send basic supplies. There is an
impression that some categories of persons do not have access to food. This
is not because there are insufficient
food stocks. But because some of them do not have the means to acquire
foodÉThere are certain categories of
internally displaced persons who are not entitled to free rations. These are
partly persons who left Jaffna after
Riviresa 2 [i.e. after the army began establishing control over the entire
Jaffna peninsula from April 1996.]

"[As regards nutrition status] there are problems in specific areas. But this
is not so alarming in terms of
numbers. However the problem is growing and needs to be addressed. Some
organisations, such as the Medicins
sans Frontiers are trying to operate supplementary feeding centres. They have
not been given the authorisation,
as yet.

The medical situation is also of concern. There is no base hospital. Only
local medical structures exist.
Thousands have to be treated when the hospitals have been designed for only
hundreds. Surgery is performed by
international NGOs such as MSF . The ICRC and the Sri Lanka Red Cross
provide medical services in the
more rural areas. We operate mobile health teams."

What follows under the next three sub-headings is drawn from two recent
reports prepared by Oxfam[1] for
Killinochchi & Mullaitivu and by Save the Children Fund (SCF) [2] for Mannar,
on the theme of Listening to
Alternative Voices. A variety of topics were covered based on interviews with
displaced and resident (host)
communities in groups as well as individually. [1] hints at the sensitive
nature of the task when it says, "A
second reason for not re-interviewing identifiable individuals is
socio-political". On no-one at Katchilamadhu
making themselves available to be interviewed despite prior notice, [1] says,
"The GS(Village Headman) of the
area explained that people were "tired of too many meetings with the movement
[i.e. the LTTE] and everyone
else". The general message from those questioned is that the war is the main
problem and expressed an
overwhelming desire for peace.

Health: Medical transport is most often accomplished by bicycle, and going to
a government facility often
involves going one day ahead, standing in a queue the next and returning the
following day. This together with
the time and expense involved forces families without adequate help to forego
treatment or to seek it late.
Necessary medicines are often unavailable at government clinics and purchases
have to be made in the black-
market.

Pale Sclera and nailbeds displayed by many women is an outward sign of
probable iron-deficiency and anaemia.
Hospital reports of a growing percentage of newborns being underweight is
another chronic sign of maternal
under-nutrition. Most commonly reported illness are malaria, "brain fever"
(i.e. cerebral malaria, chronic
headaches or migraine), scabies and typhoid.

On the matter of severe psychosis and mental deficiencies [1] says, "É.in
nearly every locale one or two people
would speak up saying that every displaced person has been deeply traumatised
by their experiences. In one
relocation site a woman told us: "You can't separate them from us, each on of
us, whether they admit it or not,
needs counselling"."

In the matter of relief to amputees and paraplegics [1] says, "The Government
of Sri Lanka embargo has halted
all supplies of prostheses, crutches, wheelchairs, leg-braces and all metal
or fiberglass from which these could
be locally fabricated."

Children: High incidences of malaria, diarrhoea, scabies and respiratory
infection were reported among
displaced children. To many of the parents, treatment of children's illnesses
was a major expense. [1] stated that
in general most children were found to be adequately immunised though
coverage was significantly delayed for
many. [2] however stated, "There is also evidence to suggest a compromised
cold chain, which if true will have
the effect of neutralising the hard work that has gone in to vaccination and
anti-polio campaigns over the last
two years. There are a number of reports of children getting measles a few
months after being vaccinated in
1996, suggesting that the vaccine has indeed been damaged."

An estimated 25% of the displaced children were not enrolled in school and
many of those enrolled were not
attending. A number of reasons were given from frequent illness, a lack of
books, distance, lack of resources or
food at home, overcrowding at schools, to and the non-distribution of free
government school uniforms this
year. [2] however also added, "Some parents were obviously worried by the
potential for recruitment in and
around schools, although this was only referred to obliquely and no one
reported active recruitment by the
LTTE." A mother of a teenage son was quoted as saying that had the school
been further away or in a more
isolated location, she would have been hesitant to allow her son to go for
fear of recruitment.

Earnings: The day wages of hired labouring men varied from Rs 75/- to
Rs125/-. Such work when available is
mainly seasonal. The corresponding figures for women are lower by 25 to 40
per cent. For the self-employed
(eg. wood-cutters and bicycle mechanics ) the earnings are very much lower
and are many spent on curing
illnesses and in maintaining the all -important family bicycle.

We may note here that both the government and the LTTE are in different ways
responsible for the extortionate
cost of basic necessities in the Vanni. The restrictions imposed by the
government are unreasonably and
punitively stringent. For example, the amputees denied artificial limbs are
often civilian victims of government
shelling. A civilian crossing into the Vanni is for example allowed only one
sheet of panadol and four cakes of
soap, which is carrying military necessity rather too far. On the other hand
large scale traders who purchase their
goods from the army enjoy generous concessions. When they take their goods in
they first supply the LTTE's
requiremnents, pay levies imposed by the LTTE, and sell the rest with a
further profit margin. For example a
bicycle tyre and tube that costs less than Rs. 500/- in Mannar town is
finally sold in the Vanni for Rs 1200/-.

To add some other salient features, even those who are not technically
displaced often face problems of dire
want. Those who are able to cultivate their fields cannot readily sell their
produce. The Paddy Marketing Board
is not operational in these areas. The only purchaser is the LTTE which sets
the price, and payment too is
generally deferred. The resulting problem of cash flow also affects all
others who sell their labour.

The problem of food is expected to become more difficult next year as owing
to widespread displacement, large
extents of fields have not been sown for the 'Maari' (main) season (sown in
September and harvested in
February). Due to the army presence some of the most fertile lands around
Killinochchi have been inaccessible
for more than a year.

Owing to widespread displacement, keeping track of populations in a
particular district has become problematic.
People, displaced say, from Killinochchi to Mullaitivu or Mannar districts
would trek many miles to collect
their rations from a co-op in their original district, since transferring
their rations to a new district would result
in long delays from paper work involving the ministry of rehabilitation in
Colombo. The only ready work such
as is available is from organisations or agencies controlled by the LTTE.
Mallavi and Madhu are the main
population centres in the interior.

Among the local population those joining the LTTE are said to be few and
largely confined to minors. In such
cases the parents as usual spend some days going from one LTTE camp to the
other in search of their child and
then give up. Exceptions have been made when parents made contact before the
training commenced and
established circumstances such as the family having already provided several
recruits and the lack of help at
home. A notable phenomenon is a significant number of cadre from Jaffna
giving their notice of quittance
(which will be followed by a punishment spell of a few months), while several
others have deserted and are in
hiding. One reason is given as disenchantment resulting from the LTTE not
fulfilling the promises of well-being
made to their families who were persuaded to come to the Vanni. A Jaffna
cadre who visited his displaced
family on leave told his mother, "I don't want to give my resignation letter
just now because many others are
doing it. But I will see". A smaller number of displaced persons are also
said to be joining the LTTE mainly
because of want.The intensification of fighting has also witnessed a large
number of militant dead. Around three
to half a dozen funerals in a village would not be far from the norm.

To people living in the Vanni the government's claim that the war is against
the LTTE and not against the Tamil
people is far from convincing. The use of shelling by the army has given
little thought to civilian safety. If the
army's intention is to relocate civilians, this is not communicated by radio
announcements or leaflets. Civilians
are rather placed in the position of waiting for shells to fall and then
taking the hint. In Killinochchi itself the
army has driven people out of some of the most fertile areas in the Vanni and
for more than a year has shown no
signs of giving them access. Going by local press reports scores of civilians
have gone missing or are confirmed
killed attempting to pick mangoes and coconuts (Rs.25 each) from around
Killinochchi. Placed in this plight it
is not unnatural for the civilians to draw a sinister parallel with Weli Oya,
however unlikely it may sound from
outside. Moreover journalistic access to the Vanni has been debarred.
Throughout the war it has been the case
that journalistic access has been withheld during just those times when the
government had much to hide.

25th August 1997: Killinochchi: The murder of Rev. Arulpalan and allied
developments
The account of this murder was issued as a separate statement and can be
found at the end of this bulletin. In a
further development, the army on 2nd October detained 22 displaced civilians
who went to view their homes in
the Thiruvaiaru area, Killinochchi. They were taken to Elephant pass camp
where they were questioned and
were released at the Jaffna magistrate's court on 6th October. Magistrate K.
Ariyanayagam instructed the GA
Jaffna to take care of them until they are handed over to GA Killinochchi.
The persons detained came from
Selvapuram, Murukandy, Santhapuram and Puththuvedduvan (Uthayn 7th and 9th
October).

Most of them are from families of Hill Country origin who had settled in the
area after the communal violence
of 1977 and 1983, and included an old man as well as lads of 13 and 16. Of
them Ramasamy Kandiah testified
that five persons including his younger brother had gone into Thiruvaiaru
(which lies to the east of Killinochchi
towards Iranamadu tank) to look at their homes and had fallen into the hands
of soldiers. Four of them,
including his brother, were stabbed to death, and the news was brought by the
one who escaped with a knife cut
in the wind pipe who is presently in a disturbed state. He later recovered
his brother's corpse.

They said that there is intense shelling by the army whenever there are
confrontations with the LTTE. Elephants
now frequent their former habitations from which the human presence has
sharply diminished. About five
elephants too have been killed by shelling.

The heart of the problem
Accusations thrown across the frontlines in the propaganda war based on
partial truths, do little to address the
underlying problems. As government propaganda emphasises, it is factually
true that the LTTE recruits and uses
children in a most objectionable manner. But little effort is made to
understand, and in turn little is done, about
the traumatic effects on Tamil children of aerial bombing, shelling and
disappearances that also help LTTE
recruitment. Thus the government does in practice next to nothing to
ameliorate this problem of Tamil children.

Propaganda supportive of the LTTE, by the very nature of what is at stake,
has of necessity to constantly
advance the charge of genocide against the government. The charge of genocide
in the first instance strikes
uncharitably and ungraciously against the vast strides taken by the ordinary
people of the South towards placing
a just political solution within reach. Moreover, the charge avoids looking
at many inconvenient facts.

Yet many phases of the conflict from July 1983 conveyed the appearance and
feeling of genocide. These saw the
widespread use of aerial bombing, regular massacres by the state forces, as
well as the forced displacement of
large Tamil populations from their long inhabited areas and replacing them
with improvised Sinhalese
settlements to act as buffers for newly installed military complexes (see Sp
Rp 5, Manal Aru to Weli Oya). In a
similar vein Muslims in the North - East as well as Sinhalese in the border
areas can, on the basis of their
experiences, claim that the LTTE is bent on destroying them in a like manner.

But on the other hand when one speaks to a number of persons in Jaffna about
their experiences, one is in for
surprises. Now that they could express themselves freely in private, the
primary anger of many of them is
directed against the LTTE. The government too could counter in mitigation
that it is the only one in the world to
have fed the population under enemy control while fighting a civil war.

Among these people of Jaffna, the atrocious use of aerial bombing by the
state, for example, appears to have
been overlaid by layers of other experiences. Those who went through these
experiences as insiders saw a great
deal more that was unseen by the external eye. What they saw was a
terrifying disease paralysing the society
and eating it like a cancer from within, vastly more harmful than the wounds
inflicted by the Sri Lankan forces.
The forced exodus from Valikamam in October 1995 left bitter wounds that many
would find hard to get over in
a lifetime. To many in Jaffna thus, current happenings in the Vanni are part
of the unfinished drama of the 1995
Exodus.

In the Vanni again there is a slow wasting death of the community, which
taken over a period,. is far graver than
anything (eg. bombing) directly attributable to the government. The numbers
drowned while attempting to get
away from the Vanni by sea are perhaps twice more than those who died as the
direct result of military action.
But then the toll on society of stress, disease, want, isolation and mental
trauma, which are bad in the Vanni,
surface in so many pernicious ways that do not make news headlines. Those
genuinely concerned about the
people would naturally be driven to pose the simple question, why not ask the
LTTE to allow the UNHCR to
handle the transportation of those civilians wanting to leave the Vanni,
instead of constraining especially women
and children to travel at considerable risk in unseaworthy vessels? The
answer to this question would throw
much light on the real tragedy.

These are salient realities necessarily missed by those rushing to charge the
government with genocide. It is as
though there are strong political and military reasons to hold these people
back in the Vanni so as to conduct
useful international campaigns on their behalf. Indeed, there is little
evidence that the vast sums of money
collected as humanitarian aid on their behalf by LTTE front organisations
bring them any benefit. The main
commodities entering the Vanni through LTTE channels are more lethal weapons
to postpone the day of
reckoning, and to drag on the days of victimhood of the people. Seldom has a
people paid so high a price for the
compassion of their erstwhile brethren domiciled overseas.

If one insists on using words such as 'genocide', it would be far more
appropriate to demand that both the
government and the LTTE cease from their joint abuse of the people of Vanni,
and come to some arrangement
that would guarantee their basic rights.

Helping these people requires not the use of evocative blanket terms, but
depth of understanding, and following
from it, application of pressure issue by issue. A part of this no doubt is
to challenge the government on matters
like aerial bombing, the murder of Rev.Arulpalan among many others, and the
want of depth in its much
vaunted concern for Tamil children.

Annexure

A Press Release:

THE MURDER OF REV. ARULPALAN AND THE GOVERNMENT'S DENIAL

25th August 1997: Killinochchi: The murder of Rev. Arulpalan: Going
westwards from the Killinochchi
bus depot, first comes the army's defence bund followed by no man's land for
about a stretch of one mile.
Murippu which has a farm, Shalom Nagar, owned by the CSI church is a little
beyond the bund in no man's
land. When the army took Killinochchi in October last year, most of those in
the farm at Murippu moved to
Konavil, beyond the LTTE sentry point at the end of no man's land, and joined
Rev. Lawrence at the CSI church
there. Incidentally Rev. Lawrence lost his wife when the air force, about New
Year 1994, bombed the
Chavakacheri town centre near the CSI church, acting on a rumour that the
LTTE leader was to unveil a statue
of Kittu (LTTE's former Jaffna commander).

Rev. Arulpalan (42) was transferred from Uduvil and took up his position as
the priest in charge of the
Shalom Nagar congregation at Konavil in April this year. Shalom Nagar
includes a church sponsored housing
scheme for displaced persons. Although the LTTE had advised civilians not to
go into no man's land, people
habitually went into the area to collect produce such as coconuts and palm
leaves for building shelter. Poverty
and unemployment also spurred people to go into the area to collect produce
from abandoned property, building
materials by stripping houses, wood work and other items left behind by the
owners, for sale.

At Shalom Nagar itself the watcher, Arumugam, and a few labourers continued
to reside there. Rev.
Arulpalan himself visited the farm regularly. On the day in question (25th
August) Arulpalan went there with
two labourers Milita Joseph (56) and his son Joseph Surendran (16). The
purpose was to cut some Palmyrah
leaves for the roof of a temporary building being put up in Konavil. While
the labourers set about their work,
Arulpalan who was down with malaria removed his cassock, folded it, put it
aside and lay down under a tree in
a pair of shorts. The army seldom came to the farm. But elsewhere in the
neighbourhood, troops on patrol
outside the bund spotted some youth plucking coconuts and gave them a chase.
The youth ran through the farm
and gave the slip to the soldiers. The soldiers were evidently very angry.
When they spotted Joseph and his son
at their work, they summoned them along with Arulpalan. The watcher Arumugam
and the other labourers
who are eye witnesses to this got away from the area unknown to the army.
>From that day Arulpalan and the
two labourers were missing.

Arulpalan's colleague Rev. Lawrence contacted the ICRC on 28th August. The
church contacted the Defence
Ministry on the same date and were told they must have been taken for a
routine check. On 9th September
church members at Konavil hired some youths to go into that area and do a
search. They came back bringing
along the remains of the three missing persons. The bodies had been found in
the kitchen of one of the houses
in the Shalom Nagar scheme.

The three items given below are relevant:

When the news of the murdered priest appeared in the Island of 16th
September, the following appeared at the
end: "É.a security forces spokesman said that many terrorists had been
ambushed by troops operating in the
Paranthan-Killinochchi areas in the recent past. The area remains closed to
ordinary civiliansÉ.terrorists move
in civilian clothes to monitor defencesÉ."

In the interview given to the Sunday Island ( 5th October) the ICRC head
Gerard Peytrignet said, "There is also
a problem in Killinochchi. Many cross from the Vanni at this point. There are
reports of high numbers arrested
and not seen and those considered to be infiltrators are shot. There are no
civilians in the area. Therefore those
found are often considered to be infiltrators".

The Uthayan of 18th September reported that two displaced high school
students who went to view their houses
in the Nedunkerni area (taken by the army in June 1997) were detained by the
army (7/9). They were handed
over to the Kebitigollawa Police and were released on bail at the Anuradapura
magistrate's court on 17th
September.

Responding to the publicity evoked by the priest's murder, the Ministry of
Defence issued a denial on 2nd
October which contained the following : " The Security Coordinating Officer
Jaffna, and the DIG Jaffna who
inquired into the death of Rev. ArulpalanÉhave revealed that the priest had
not been taken into custody by any
unit of the security forces under any circumstances. Further, the church is
situated outside the boundaries of the
area cleared by the armed forces which is not accessible to service
personnelÉaccordingly, all evidence shows
that the death of Rev. ArulpalanÉcould probably be a result of an act of the
LTTE with the intention of
bringing discredit to the armed forcesÉ"

The foregoing however suggests that the claims in this statement are not
borne out by known facts. The facts
surrounding the murder presented by us are based on well authenticated
information provided by local sources.
The injuries on the corpse of Rev. Arulpalan showed that he had been shot .
Three fingers had been missing
from his left hand owing to a festival accident with handling of crackers in
his childhood. The killers had cut off
this hand and removed it. The two labourers, father and son, had been hacked
to death. Only a few bones
remained from the father's body, the flesh evidently having been eaten by
jungle animals or stray dogs. The
head of the son had been severed and placed between the legs. The two
labourers who had earlier lived in the
South were of Malayali origin and were fluent in Sinhalese. Rev. Arulpalan
too knew some Sinhalese. There is
no doubt that the soldiers who arrested them had been told that Arulpalan was
the priest of the church.

Civilian sources in the area also said that about twenty persons who went
into `no man's land' are missing.
Twelve of them are said to have been taken into custody by the security
forces earlier. The people were
confident that they were alive but are now losing hope because nothing more
has been heard. One person who,
according to local reports, was taken into custody and had returned is a
postal peon. When he told the army the
work he was doing he was sent to Jaffna and asked to work in the Jaffna post
office. He later found his way
back home. Before the incident involving Arulpalan two civilians are said to
have been stabbed to death in `no
man's land'. However people continue to go into the area as much as they did
before.

All these serve to indicate that a serious problem of civilian security
exists in the area that stems from armed
forces' activity. If the import of the Ministry of Defence's statement is
that the government is dodging the issue,
it is most unbecoming and reprehensible.

All available evidence strongly indicates that the murder of Rev. Arulpalan
and the two labourers was
committed by members of the security forces. The absurd denial by the
Ministry of Defence only shows that they
have learned nothing from their handling of such matters from the '80s which
taught people to attach little
credibility to statements and stated intentions of the government. The
authorities owe it to the people to conduct
an inquiry into the matter by persons whose credibility is above board.
[The above was released on the 11th of October ]

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The University Teachers for Human Rights (Jaffna) (UTHR(J)) was formed in
1988 at the University of Jaffna, as part of the national organisation
University Teachers for Human Rights. Its public activities as a
constituent part of university life came to a standstill following the murder
of Dr. Rajani Thiranagama, a key founding member, on 21st September 1989.
During the course of 1990 the others who identified openly
with the UTHR(J) were forced to leave Jaffna. It continues to function as an
organisation upholding the founding spirit of the UTHR(J) with it original
aims:
To challenge the external and internal terror engulfing the Tamil community
as a whole through making the perpetrators accountable, and to create space
for humanising the social & political spheres relating to the
life of our community. The UTHR(J) is not at present functioning in the
University of Jaffna in the manner it did in its early life for reasons well
understood. The work of UTHR(J) receives support from the European Human Rights
Foundation among others.